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Sunday, October 11, 2015

#1487: David Coppedge

One of the unfailing characteristics of pseudoscientists is
that they are oppressed. One of the unfailing characteristics of Christian
fundamentalists is that they are persecuted.
And when a movement is both pseudoscientific and fundamentalist, like the
Intelligent Design movement, you’d expect them to construct a whole mythology out of it (as
illustrated for instance by the movie Expelled).

A more recent story of persecution pushed (variably – even
the Discotute may have dimly realized that they didn’t have a very good case
here) by the Discovery Institute concerns David Coppedge, a computer technician (yes – though the Discovery Institute
would go to lengths to try to enhance his credentials) who was demoted and then
fired by the JPL in 2012. Coppedge, on his side, claimed to be the victim of
discrimination against his views on creationism. The JPL, however, pointed out
that Coppedge was out of line harassing scientists with nonsense, passing out
DVDs of creationist nonsense, pushing his website, and basically wasting his
time and not doing his job. They had repeatedly warned him, and even through
his demotion Coppedge persisted. So they fired him,
understandably enough. Coppedge, backed by a team of creationist lawyers, sued. The
case (covered in detail here)
was made difficult by the fact that Coppedge evidently struggled to distinguish
reality from fantasy and tended to see conspiracies everywhere – and then there is his legal brief,
which included a three-page “screenplay” dramatizing his interactions with one of his co-workers while admitting that “[s]ome liberties have been taken with the dialogue and action as artistic
license” (not obviously something legal experts would advise you to include in
a legal brief). The lawsuit failed,
and his lawyer, William Becker, was not happy: “David was the victim of
religious discrimination because a handful of malicious co-workers hated his
Christian views,” said Becker, which is hilariously false but very telling with
regard to the delusional mindset – persecution complex – of this particular
group of people mentioned above. It is also telling that the Discovery Institute, who vehemently (and falsely) denies that Intelligent
Design (ID) is a religious view, also seems to think that anti-ID moves
constitute religious persecution.

Diagnosis: A loon, and a persistent, relentless one. The
lawsuit might have given him more prominence and influence than ever, but
Coppedge seems to be sufficiently crazy that his contributions may do more harm
than help to his anti-science movement.